Brent Venables just doubled down on a decision he made in the offseason that outsiders may be still be doubting originally appeared on A to Z Sports.

The decision to hire Seth Littrell last season was easily the worst decision head coach Brent Venables has made during his tenure as the head coach of the Oklahoma Sooners.

Littrell’s scheme was just not great, as it didn’t put players in positions to play to their strengths, specifically skill position players and the offensive line. Then, his play calling was atrocious, where he would call sometimes plays that a team shouldn’t be calling when you factor in the players that they were using.

So, Venables fired him mid-season. And, the offense didn’t really get much better, well, it did a bit, but not anything crazy, because the team was stuck with the scheme that they spent all offseason learning. They fired him, but the damage was already done.

This offseason, Venables went the young route, hiring 29-year-old offensive coordinator Ben Arbuckle, who previously coached at Washington State as the OC, and helped John Mateer, the Sooners’ new quarterback, put up some astronomical numbers in the PAC-2.

The Sooners loved what they saw in Arbuckle’s style and scheme that he brought to the table. And then, you add in the fact that hiring him meant the possibility of getting John Mateer was even higher, and it was the perfect plan.

And, it’s safe to say that Brent Venables is not worried about the hire at all.

View the original article to see embedded media.

Brent Venables lets everyone know he believes in Ben Arbuckle

There are some national pundits out there who are saying Arbuckle has never coached against SEC defenses consistently, every single week, and he would struggle in the SEC. But Venables doesn’t care about that.

“I really feel good about the most major change we had, and that was the change in offensive coordinator,” Venables told reporters on Wednesday before fall camp kicked off.

View the original article to see embedded media.

The Sooners are hoping to stay healthy, as that’s really the only thing at this point that could keep them from having a similar season offensively to the one they had last year. Everything they have done says they will be a better team on that side of the ball than they were last year.

Then again, is that really going to be hard to do?

This story was originally reported by A to Z Sports on Aug 1, 2025, where it first appeared.